Jamaal Franklin battles UNLV’s Brice Massamba during SDSU’s home game last month. Franklin hit the winning shot in the game’s final second. Earnie Grafton • U-T

LAS VEGAS, NV - JANUARY 18: Chace Stanback #22 of the UNLV Rebels brings the ball up the court against the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs during their game at the Thomas & Mack Center January 18, 2012 in Las Vegas, Nevada. UNLV won 101-78. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Chace Stanback

LAS VEGAS, NV - JANUARY 18: Chace Stanback #22 of the UNLV Rebels brings the ball up the court against the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs during their game at the Thomas & Mack Center January 18, 2012 in Las Vegas, Nevada. UNLV won 101-78. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Chace Stanback

San Diego State’s Xavier Thames tries to pass the ball while being sandwiched by New Mexico’s Kendall Williams, left, and A.J. Hardeman, right, in the second half of an NCAA college basketball game, Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012 at University Arena in Albuquerque, N.M. San Diego State won 75-70. (AP Photo/Craig Fritz)

San Diego State’s Xavier Thames tries to pass the ball while being sandwiched by New Mexico’s Kendall Williams, left, and A.J. Hardeman, right, in the second half of an NCAA college basketball game, Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012 at University Arena in Albuquerque, N.M. San Diego State won 75-70. (AP Photo/Craig Fritz)

There is the video by the guy who describes himself as “Las Vegas born and raised” and “I like to shoot stuff.” It shows a masked gunman in the desert wearing a UNLV T-shirt, aiming an assault rifle at a television set that is showing the final seconds of San Diego State’s 69-67 win against UNLV last month at Viejas Arena.

Shows him pulling the trigger. Shows the TV exploding into a fireball.

There’s the formation three weeks ago of “The Rebellion,” a UNLV student section that hopes to emulate SDSU’s “The Show” and already has electronic billboards across Las Vegas — and boasted on Twitter that “we have received and confirmed where the basketball team from San Diego will be staying.”

There are the increasingly contentious cyberspace exchanges that have included side-by-side photos of Aztecs bearded center Garrett Green and al-Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki (who once attended graduate classes at SDSU) with the caption: “Wait a second.”

There was the overflow crowd Thursday night for the usually subdued weekly radio show of Rebels coach Dave Rice at the Orleans casino.

There’s the Thomas & Mack Center selling all 18,000-odd seats two days in advance for today’s 1 p.m. tipoff matching the No. 13 Aztecs (20-3, 6-1) against the No. 14 Rebels (21-4, 5-2), the earliest basketball sellout in two decades.

“It’s big, it’s really big,” Aztecs forward Jamaal Franklin acknowledged. “But we can’t be too anxious. We have to take it as another day at the office. If you don’t, pressure comes to you, and pressure bursts pipes.”

There are two general explanations for UNLV’s sudden infatuation with beating the Aztecs. One is that BYU, the school everyone loved to hate, is no longer in the Mountain West. The other is jealousy.

Over the past 2½ seasons, the Rebels are 56-13 against the rest of the nation … and 0-6 against SDSU. They have defeated Wisconsin, Kansas State, New Mexico, Illinois, Cal, USC, Utah, BYU and North Carolina when it was No. 1. And in six meetings against the Aztecs: loss, loss, loss, loss, loss, loss.

In the past 10 meetings: 1-9.

“It always sucks to lose to San Diego State,” UNLV senior Brice Massamba told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “We’ve lost to them a lot, so we want to change the trend.”

Added Quintrell Thomas: “It has bothered me a long time.”

It has, because the games are so tantalizingly close. The last two went down to the final possession — a D.J. Gay buzzer-beater in the Mountain West Tournament last March, a Franklin buzzer-beater at Viejas Arena last month. The two before that were six-point games.

And they usually go like this: SDSU sags on defense and the Rebels jack up shots from the perimeter, and miss. SDSU dares them to keep shooting, the Rebels keep missing.